Dwell Floor Five Ceramics

An absolutely beautiful and extremely rare Shigarakai Yaki Ware Chawan tea bowl / Yunomi cup by famed Japanese Hawaiian American pottery master Toshiko Takaezu. The work features a gorgeous dripped glaze over a anagama kiln fired Shigaraki clay body. It is a unique and one-of-a-kind work with a very Wabi-Sabi feel to it. The piece is signed on the base with her traditional "TT" mark / monogram. Shigaraki Ware pottery comes from Shiga Prefecture, Japan. The kiln there is one of six ancient kilns in Japan (along with Echizen ware, Seto ware, Bizen ware, Tamba ware, and Tokoname ware). In 1993, Toshiko was invited to Japan by Shiro Otani to work with the quartz rich clay and local artists/potters at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park. In 1995 she made the journey there to work in master Japanese ceramicist Shiho Kanzaki's studio in Shigaraki,. We believe this work was likely created at this time. It appears few pieces that she made during this particular visit exists today as we have only seen one other work - another Chawan - that she created during this trip (The works were fired in Kanzaki's anagama kiln in February 1996 and subsequently shipped back to Toshiko in New Jersey). This particular work also encompasses the Japanese Wabi-Sabi aesthetic - the appreciation of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete in nature and embraces the principles of asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and the appreciation of both natural objects and the forces of nature upon them. Would be a great addition to any collectors of Toshiko's work or Japanese/Hawaiian pottery...

A wonderful work by famed Los Angeles (Echo Park), California-based artist Peter Shire who was a founding member (along with Italian designer Ettore Sottsass and others) of The Memphis Group, an international design movement that came out of Italy during the 1980s (1980-1988), and specialized in postmodern furniture, lighting, fabrics, carpets, ceramics, glass, and metal objects. This work is from 1981 and is signed with Shire's customary "EXP" pottery (Echo Park Pottery...